Trump Backs Boosters. Clearly, Someone Did the Math for Him.

bnew

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Trump Backs Boosters. Clearly, Someone Did the Math for Him.

Trump is losing hundreds of voters a day to Covid — far more than the margins in the swing states.
Donald G. McNeil Jr.
3 days ago·3 min read

Math is not Donald Trump’s strong point.


Example: In 1988, he paid $408 million for the Plaza Hotel and spent millions making it gaudier. Seven years later, his creditors sold it for $325 million. And yet he styles himself a business genius.

Genius or no, he is suddenly doing something very smart: in interview after interview, he endorses vaccines and boosters. He’s even called political rivals who refuse to admit they’ve been boosted “gutless.”

Why?

My guess is that somebody has done the math for him.

The math that says: “Uh, sir? Your voters are dying in droves.”

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Doing the math

By last June, almost all American adults who got vaccinated voluntarily had had their shots.

The Associated Press did a study of all Covid deaths in May and found that 99 percent of them were among the unvaccinated.

Since then, many other studies have reaffirmed that trend: in September, a C.D.C. study found that 91 percent of deaths were among the unvaccinated. In November, a Texas state health department study put it at 95 percent.

Who are the unvaccinated? Back in May, they were no doubt a mix of Republicans and Democrats. Early on, for example, many black and Hispanic Americans were hesitant about vaccines..

But that trend has shifted. Lots of black and Hispanic Americans came to accept the vaccines and employer mandates forced working Americans of all stripes to get them.

Recent C.D.C. data cited by Kaiser Health News shows vaccine-resistance highest among whites. Earlier polls showed growing divisions along party and even religious lines (86 percent of Democrats vaccinated vs. 60 percent Republicans; 90 percent of atheists vs. 57 percent of white evangelicals). By September, the pattern was clear, according to David Leonhardt of The New York Times: Covid death rates were about three times higher in counties that had voted for Donald Trump in 2020.

Since the AP did its study, about 270,000 Americans have died of Covid. If, say, 95 percent of those dead were unvaccinated, that’s 257,000 unvaccinated Americans gone.

How many of them were Trump voters? It’s impossible to know, but the Delta wave pushed average daily deaths over 1,000 a day in late August and they’ve stayed there. Those battle lines were clear by September. So it’s a good bet that the vast majority of deaths of the last two waves have been.

As of this week, about 1,800 Americans a day are dying of Covid; the C.D.C. expects that number to rise above 2,600.

Virtually all are adults. If 95 percent were unvaccinated and we assume that 75 percent of those were Trump supporters, that’s 1,300 to 1,900 of his voters being subtracted from the rolls every single day.

Donald Trump lost Arizona by a mere 10,000 votes. He lost Georgia by 12,000, He lost Wisconsin by 21,000. He lost Nevada by 33,000.

Right now, about 60 Arizonans, 36 Georgians, 34 Wisconsinites and 14 Nevadans are dying of Covid each day. Seventy five percent of 95 percent of that would be minus 103 Trump voters per day — just in those four swing states. Week after week. That adds up.

Also, there is another factor in the equation. Covid is just one cause of overall mortality. While Republican state legislatures are working hard to suppress the Democratic vote, an invisible opposing hand is working against them: God’s.

The top five causes of death in this country, in order, are: heart disease, cancer, Covid, accidents and stroke. They all tend to smite the old, the obese and those who live far away from hospitals, i.e., rural red America.

It’s a good bet that Donald Trump has finally seen the arithmetic on the wall. If he is to have even a prayer in 2024, he needs to slow down death rates among his supporters. Hence, the booster-backing.

It may be too late, of course. But it sounds like he’s trying — despite the booing.
 

Hood Critic

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Its an easy play to regain control of a party whose establishment behind closed doors is trying to quietly move away from him. He will run on the concept of he and he alone brought vaccines to the country and several of his fellow republicans sat around and allowed very fine people to die because of their lack of experience but he's very experienced in fighting covid.

A lot of people on all sides are going to eat it up ( doubt it moves the needle for him ) but you're already seeing people give Trump credit for pandemic related things that had nothing to do with him other than people with realizing there was an empty suit at the helm and they better start doing something to save lives in spite of it.
 

MushroomX

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A majority of his bases hasn't even gotten the vaccine yet, so I am not sure you can just get the booster first. Regardless he sat on this for a year, a year for misinformation to spread, and for people to take over with his style of politics.

Personally this is a non-issue from my end, because Trump spent way too much time politically from this issue and now he really doesn't have a core. The people he endorsed last year didn't win.
 

iceberg_is_on_fire

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Damn, I was severely lowballing the numbers.

Just using linear math.

1170 days till the next election.
1000 deaths a day
70% Republican

If numbers keep going.

Losing over 819k supporters, in addition to normal attrition like death under normal and other abnormal causes while heavily concentrated in the south is not a winning recipe. Their anti-intellectualism has jumped the shark and they can't reel it in.
 

Macallik86

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Its an easy play to regain control of a party whose establishment behind closed doors is trying to quietly move away from him. He will run on the concept of he and he alone brought vaccines to the country and several of his fellow republicans sat around and allowed very fine people to die because of their lack of experience but he's very experienced in fighting covid.

A lot of people on all sides are going to eat it up ( doubt it moves the needle for him ) but you're already seeing people give Trump credit for pandemic related things that had nothing to do with him other than people with realizing there was an empty suit at the helm and they better start doing something to save lives in spite of it.
Tactically I liked hearing Biden and Psaki going out of their way to give Trump credit for vaccines/boosters.

For his die-hard sycophants, they might be convinced to take the shot, and for all other unvaxxed Republicans, it creates distance between Trump and their current beliefs. Trump is so egotistical that he happily accept credit without realizing it's subtly backhanded and win/win for Dems.
 

Hood Critic

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Tactically I liked hearing Biden and Psaki going out of their way to give Trump credit for vaccines/boosters.

For his die-hard sycophants, they might be convinced to take the shot, and for all other unvaxxed Republicans, it creates distance between Trump and their current beliefs. Trump is so egotistical that he happily accept credit without realizing it's subtly backhanded and win/win for Dems.

Which is why they do it.

The sad thing is, its just another example of how he'll say or do anything that he feels benefits him in the moment. He's so transparent that it's cartoonish, yet people still take him serious for whatever reason.
 
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